10 of the Best Chili Bowls in Milwaukee

Chili season is in full swing. The weather has turned
blustery and football has taken over Sundays. Many people cook chili at home,
but like all comfort food, sometimes it just tastes best when it's cooked for
you. Here are 10 of the best places to grab a bowl of chili around Milwaukee.

The gold standard for chili in Milwaukee, Real Chili is
especially loved by Marquette students thanks to its campus location. The chili
recipe goes back to at least 1931 when they opened in MKE, and it's served
similar to Cincinnati-style chili, with your choice of beans, spaghetti
noodles, mounds of shredded cheese and other toppings. Order “the Marquette” to
get a medium-spicy bowl with spaghetti and beans, then top it with endless
oyster crackers. People tend to either love Real Chili or hate it, but no one
can deny its iconic status in Milwaukee.

The chili at this exceptional downtown dive bar is home
style, so you'll find ground beef, beans and veggies like green peppers and
celery. It leans toward the brothy—as opposed to thick tomato sauce—side of the
chili spectrum, but it's still rich and meaty. Get it KC's style and it's
served over a big piece of crusty bread with sour cream and cheese on top, or
try it on a chili cheese dog on Mondays.

Beer and chili go together well, which is presumably why
Stubby's has chili on the menu. They go a step further in their Pigs n' Pints
chili and use beer in the recipe. It's pork based, with beer and various types
of chiles, and has won local chili cookoff contests. Standard toppings are
available, but the best way to try it may be on top of their Westsider nachos.
An already massive pile of chips, cheese, pico and corn salsa gets covered in
chili and then topped with big scoops of sour cream and guacamole.

The chili at Beans & Barley is vegetarian, but meat
eaters seem to love it just as much as herbivores. It's more filling than you'd
imagine a veggie chili to be, thanks to the substantial addition of bulgur
wheat to the traditional base of tomatoes, beans, peppers and onions. If that's
still not enough for you, get it topped with cheese, onions and sliced avocado,
a primo chili topper that isn't a common option around here.

The restaurant inside the Harley-Davidson Museum serves up a
meaty, Texas-style roadhouse beef chili, perfect for satisfying your appetite
after a long Harley ride. You can get it in a bowl with cheese, onion and sour
cream, but why stop there? It's also available on top of a baked potato,
Cincy-style with noodles as an entree, and stuffed into mini cornbread mini
muffins as an appetizer. Cornbread and chili are a matched pair, so why not?

If you can deal with the crowd that leans heavily toward
college age (this is Water St., after all), then you'll be rewarded with a top
notch bowl of chili. They call it Texas red, and it's chock full of meat, likely because BBQ makes up most of the
menu. Steak, brisket and bacon are mixed with bourbon, beer and a great hit of
hot spice. If you want to temper the heat a little, try it on top of mac and
cheese or chili cheese fries.

Known primarily as a sports bar with a popular Miller Park
shuttle, chili is the best thing I've found on Rounding Third's menu (though,
their burgers are pretty solid, too). It's thick and hearty, with black beans,
corn and just a little bit of heat. It's just fine in a crock on its own, but
go for the gold and get the chili cheese fries. Thick, crisp fries hold up
amazingly well under a blanket of chili, then topped with grated cheddar, red
onion and sour cream. They're the best chili cheese fries around.

Suitable for its neighborhood, the chili at Fuel Cafe in
Riverwest is vegan. It's only available on weekends and does sell out, but it's
a delicious bargain when you can get it. Lots of peppers, onions, beans and
tomatoes make up the base, and you can get it topped with noodles, sour cream (vegan
or dairy), cheddar and onions all for free. Also free: the big chunk of French
bread and butter served on the side.

The Fire Pit is located on the first floor of Potawatomi, in
the back corner of the old casino area. It's one of the best places to watch
sports thanks to giant TVs and great viewing angles. They have a number of
Native American-inspired dishes, including a chili made with bison meat, not
beef. Bison is lean and rich, which makes it perfect for a long-cooking chili.
Try it with an order of fry bread on the side, on their nachos or in a
quesadilla.

Available at both the Wauwatosa and downtown locations, the
chili at Jackson's is made with filet, ground chuck and andouille sausage.
Andouille is a Cajun sausage often used in jambalaya, giving this chili a
unique spice. Perhaps the best part of the chili here are the toppings, though:
onions, sour cream and fried cheese curds. Why don't more places put cheese
curds on top of their chili? Get on that, restaurants.